1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical computer for optically processing information, and particularly to an optical computer composed of a thin-film element that contains nanoparticles comprising molecules of an organic compound and associates/aggregates of these molecules.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, the concept of an optical computer has been proposed, and based on this concept optical computing elements have been proposed. Moreover, optical computers having special functions have been manufactured on a trial basis.
Optical elements used in such optical computers have a structure such that a partially light-shielding mask is placed in front of a thin flat inorganic crystal (LiNbO.sub.3, BBO or the like). A signal light beam and a control light beam are input via the mask to the element for optical computation. By changing the light-shielding pattern of this mask, selection can be made from among various computing operations. In the experimentally manufactured optical computers, the computing elements are spatially arranged such that they are basically connected in series. This arrangement has been employed so as to achieve super-high speed computation.
However, since the above-described optical computers are dedicated computers designed to perform special calculations at high speed, they are not suitable for various types of general calculations. Especially, it has been said that such optical computers are not suitable for processing of two-dimensional information including image information. Moreover, since the conventional elements in optical computers use a single crystal, a substance to effect a function of an element is a homogeneous system, so that it is difficult to control transfer of an excited state within the thin-film element.
This restriction also holds true with a system wherein molecules of an organic compound are monomolarcularly dispersed in a matrix of a polymer or the like, and remains unsolved in essence.